School teachers must be prepared for ongoing, unpredictable and rapid changes in the world, therefore, they need specialised and general knowledge to be able to think independently and imaginatively. The purpose with this article was thus to report on the effectiveness of a self-directed professional development (SDPD) intervention that guided…

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the impact of mentorship on the development of self-directedness among beginner teachers in their initial years of teaching. Design/methodology/approach: The researcher adopted a positivist paradigm to explore the situation of concern. Quantitative research was conducted, involving the collection and analysis…

The current study examined self-organized learning environments (SOLEs) pedagogy as a conduit to learners' metacognitive skills and conceptual understanding in physical sciences and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a whole in Capricorn District of Limpopo Province of South Africa. The aim was based on ongoing debates…

The topic of resources for learning mathematics commonly becomes of interest during times of disruption and rapid change in education. The considerable research on undergraduate mathematics students' resource use largely focuses on learning resources in the form of material technologies and texts. Concerned that contemporary decisions about…

As South African researchers facing HIV- and AIDS-related challenges in our professional lives, we continuously turn to self-study methodology to inform our learning and teaching in our teacher education practice. This article explores how we extended our professional knowledge in relation to HIV and AIDS, starting with our own self-study doctoral…

The continuously changing business world demands that students entering the world of work have an adaptable skill set. The acquisition of appropriate exit-level knowledge, skills and competencies also holds true for young school students and early school leavers. At school level the engagement and connectedness with the outside world and the…

Objective: The study investigates first-year teacher education students' self-directed learning through Computer-Aided Mathematics Instruction (CAMI). Methods: A total of 230 first-year mathematics teachers specialising in Further Education and Training (FET) phase teaching participated in the study, where responses from 50 student teachers were…

Utilising the theoretical frameworks of theory of power and theory of performativity, this case study explored how learners exercised agency in the construction of their identity in school discourses. Data capture incorporated a mix of a survey, semi-structured interviews and field notes. Data was analysed using content analysis. A total of 90…

While online learning is increasingly used to provide continuation and facilitate interaction between students, institutions are challenged by low participation rates on their learning management systems and high drop-out rates. At the same time, students engage in extensive, needs-driven informal collaborations on a spectrum of offline and online…

The concept of self-directedness is a missing link in South African science classrooms, and as a result, science teachers are often not self-directed in employing innovative teaching and learning strategies such as blended problem-based learning (BPBL) that might enhance self-directed learning. The literature is replete with studies showing that…

Inquiry-based science education has been advocated as a goal in the South African school science curriculum. Despite this goal, the implementation of inquiry in this country has been largely fragmented due to contextual factors that exert an influence on its traction in the classroom. This phenomenologically orientated study reports on the…

Few people who did not grow up speaking Zulu have learned the language later. There are limited resources for second language Zulu learning, whether textbooks, readers, or computerised resources. We set out to develop software for this purpose, to support learners' independent learning. Drawing on research on language learning, we used a number of…

A major goal of higher education is to create an environment conducive to quality student learning. Medical practitioners should possess a sound knowledge of anatomy to enable them to diagnose patients accurately and treat them successfully. Studies have reported a decline in the knowledge of anatomy acquired by students, recent medical graduates…

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of online learning and self-directed learning to motivate and engage students. Therefore, this study sought to determine how online learning fostered self-directed learning at a South African university during this period. Higher education institutions worldwide had to shut down indefinitely following…

A number of universities in South Africa are sharing teaching materials online making them freely available as Open Educational Resources (OER). The open sharing of teaching materials has been coupled with a number of institutional policy initiatives. This paper seeks to explore the institutional policy landscape of OER in South Africa in order to…